Art Lies, Volume 3, October-November 1994

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DATELINE: Los AngelesBill BegertAfter the January 17th earthquake LosAngeles. an amazing thing happened.My roommate and I stumbled into ourliving room foolishly flicking on hercigarette lighter to get us to the balconydoor. Once outside, our eyes immedi-ately went to the sky, papered with thenorthern hemisphere's winter constella-tions, made fantastically visible in theblackout. We'd forgotten that they werethere. It was breathtaking. And then theaftershocks began. We knew that thecity, threatening to collapse beneath us.breathed death that morning. Yet I re-member those stars as vividly as thegroaning desert crust.Why do I bring this up, this ephemeralexperience on our tiny balcony in thePalms district? Well, I can't help think-ing about the rebuilding of the city, aproject made quite pressing followingtwo years of civil unrest, wildfires, andearly morning aftershocks. Once again.the city re-invented its urban spaces.Here, art deco buildings are torn down toenable parking garages. Structures builtbefore W.W.II qualify as "old". Los An-geles' cinematic habit of masquerading asevery place else suggests a profoundschizophrenia at the heart of the city'sself-image. How does an individual ob-tain a coherent impression of such aplace. a city covering several thousandsquare miles? Even in your car (L.A.'smetaphor of consciousness par excel-lance), the extent to which the city isavailable for consumption is extremelylimited. Except through the media. Themediated incarnation of Los Angelesproves its "real" self. A growing numberof the city's artists have begun to exam-ine the effect this attitude towards thebuilt environment produces.Steven Criqui's sleek paintings, on viewlast year at both Food House and KohnTurner Gallery, neatly describe the visualexperience of Los Angeles as a spacefilled with overlapping signs whosenumber renders them illegible. Decep-tively simple, the paintings consist ofpanels of brightly painted biomorphic

shapes affixed to jokey, crenellatedbackboards. Criqui's vision of the city

throws its contours into flat relief, leav-ing it a sensuous, shimmering surface ofsignage. In his recent photographs, hetakes the process a step further. Theworks overlay images of, say, tract hous-ing with his shapes, manipulating "realis-tic" representation until the built envi-ronment is unrecognizable except as afantasized, media-transformed realm.John Souza's recent show, "Remember-entering", at Sue Spaid Fine Art indexthe built environment as the bearer ofcultural memory. Like a series of altarniches in a post-modern cathedral, theEntrances, as the works were called, en-tice the viewer with their harmoniouscolors, structural integrity, and exquisitedetail. Taking a quintessential L.A. twist,the work places numerous architecturalperiods side by side, complicating theirreferentiality. A blood-red work remi-niscent of a Buddhist shrine neighbors ablack, gothic spire and a white,post-and-lintel structure complete with aRoman pediment. To enter these struc-tures, both physically and psychologi-cally, is to wander into memories of cul-tural legacies we have inherited withoutfully comprehending them.Christopher Williams' photographs dealwith the psychological dimension ofspace. A pair of photos from his latestexhibition at Margo Leavin Gallery de-picts L. A's Department of Water andPower Building downtown. Taken atnight, the black and white photographsgleam with the singular effect of thecity's light pollution. The focus is sharp,the detail is extreme. The high. Modern-ist structure, representative of the twothings the city could not exist without,rises monumentally. The history of L.A.'s capture of water and power encapsu-lates the city of the city itself. Not coin-cidentally, those are the two things de-nied to residents after the earthquake.Williams' shots, taken from the roof of 'the Museum of Contemporary Art, lookat the DWP across the construction siteof the city's new symphony hall. Takenfrom numerous angles in a manner redo-lent of Cubism, these photographs con-sider the building like a memory whosereality, from this vantage point, is finite.

that filled the gallery's narrow space.Five variously colored Christmas trees.each topped with an enormous star.splash into the surface of a turgid. plasticocean. More than an obvious nature/culture dichotomy, the work mobilizes aview of culture heavy with the plastic na-ivete of L.A. Or better, of its doppel-ganger Las Vegas, that city of sin begatof Los Angeles in the scorched Nevadamoonscape. Grotesque, over-the-top,touchingly unique, each tree reeks of theself-love of Las Vegas and its show-girls.And more, the work rides the apocalpticedge as only Las Vegas does. In sites asAlexandrian as L.A. and Las Vegas, awork like Pastor's resonates. Of course.Alexandria was destined for collapse, itsmonuments falling into the sea.Which returns me to January 17, 4:31a.m. In retrospect, our response to thenight sky and the tremors seems evenmore sensible to me. After all, therewould be plenty of time to reconstruct thecity renowned for re-inventing itself. Thestars would only last until sunrise.

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